On the eve of our second season in the National League North, I just wanted to update everybody on various goings-on at the club.
It’s been an incredibly busy summer all over. We finished last season on a great high, and it was emotional saying goodbye to Neil as manager. He ‘moved upstairs’ but left us in a really good place that has hopefully established foundations we can continue to build on, with him also in support.
It has been great to see Neil and Bobby working together closely to help move Marine Football Club forwards. They both have their own strengths. This has allowed us to retain all the key players from last season whilst improve the squad further with the signings of George Newell, Matty McDonald, Ash Hunter, Bailey Marsden, Lewis Bell and AJ Warburton. Compared to last season, we feel we are in a much better place.
We turn our attention to our first game away at South Shields tomorrow. We hope to start the season on a high, but we know it will be tough. Bobby will take the team there full of confidence and energy though, and we will give our all to try and get a result.
I am also excited, on the pitch, with our overall football structure, including the new relationship with 7Elite.
We now have our midweek academy in full-time education delivered by Access Sports playing and training at the MTA from Monday to Friday. That is now complemented by an U18 and two U23 teams weekend teams who play in the Liverpool County Premier and West Cheshire Leagues delivered by 7Elite Academy. This has given us the ability to benefit from the top players locally who want to be in full-time education, and also top players locally who don’t want to be in full-time education. It has been great to work with Ant Godfrey at 7Elite over the past few months along with his staff including Bily Vaughan, Sam D’Auvin, and Jake Wilson. Our Access Sports Academy also continues to strengthen with record recruitment numbers led by our own first team coach Chris Stammers along with Lee Jones and the rest of the team. We have some incredible talent coming through our system now, I have never seen us so strong. That is outlined by Bobby signing 16-year-old Harry Huby recently from our Academy who is outstanding, and people will see a lot of him over the coming years. Players like Jules Flanagan from 7Elite have also played a big part of pre-season and done really well.
We continue our relationship with Crosby Stuart who are our aged 5-16 feeder club and provide a key partnership. Crosby Stuart continue to provide half-time entertainment and mascots through the season.
We are excited to see how the Women’s setup fares following their promotion last year. Manager Von has done a great job and has made a lot of changes to help the team move forwards. The team have a great bond and continue to strengthen.
It has been great to see the support over the summer. The new Home and Away Kit (picked by the fans) through Malooka Sports has gone down really well and really does look the part. The amount of sales in such a short period of time is really impressive. We have now also hit the 500 market in terms of season ticket sales. This is despite us having to increase the prices this season to be around the middle of the pack in the league in terms of pricing this season to help us be more competitive – the way this was received by our supporters who understood our predicament was first class. We are also at 100 virtual ticket season tickets, sold to people all over the world including Norway, Australia, America and of course Spurs fans. Our Boost the Budget has almost doubled last year’s total with well over £20k donated. Thank you so much to everybody for your continued backing.
Our hospitality packages continue to provide great value for money, hosted by Tony Bradshaw who does a great job. If anyone hasn’t had a chance to do it then give it a go. This season, there is also for the first time a season ticket holder discount. Match Day Hospitality | Marine FC Tickets
The stadium has seen quite a few changes over the summer which people will notice. The PA system has been improved considerably in many areas of the stadium. A new concrete pathway down the Jubilee Road side has been installed which makes it far easier to get to the Crosender Road end of the ground. The scoreboard, installed last season thanks to McCallum & Tritton, will look brilliant through the work of Mark Wilcock. We have also completed the Community Hub now which looks absolutely incredible and will also be a massive asset on a matchday.
Marine In The Community has continued to grow apace led by Graeme Gardiner. We have had many challenges with space in which to undertake our many activities, however the new Hub will give us a base to scale up our activities. The total cost of the new building is just under six figures and I thank Sefton Council, The Clothworkers Foundation and The Football Foundation for supporting this financially, along with MITC trustee David Fairclough for hosting a sporting dinner to help raise the required funds.
The one area we have underperformed, despite high revenues, over the last season is with our bars and events. As a result of this we have had to make a lot of changes over the last six weeks which hasn’t been easy for anybody. I am delighted though to welcome Marine fan Jack Barton as our new full-time Bar & Events manager who starts on Monday. We are almost at the end of a selection process to find a new caterer to provide our food provision for the 1894 Bar & Bistro, functions & events going forward and we will look to do a relaunch soon. Watch this space.
Finally, looking medium and long-term; we announced on the 24th December our plans for a new stadium. Since then, we have continued to make a huge amount of progress to make this a reality which includes:
– Completed a pre-planning application and received feedback from Sefton Council
– Continued to seek funds to support the build of the stadium and for which we have made key progress
– Tweaked the stadium design and layout to a new final layout which will set Marine Football Club up for the next 100 years whilst creating a facility that will become an incredible community asset
– Spoken to many people and held many meetings to progress the plans. As an example, I have just came out of a meeting with Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram today with Dad and Dave McMillan.
– Continued to plan and work with Bellway as we head towards a full planning application which will be submitted early 2026.
Rob Armes has done a brilliant job with our commercial links. Anyone interested in sponsorship or advertising at the club this season should contact commercial@marinefc.com. I would like to thank Dave Thompson and all of the team at Marine Travel for their vital continued support.
It is set to be another exciting season but it is never easy off the field so your continued support is critical to helping us continue to develop the club.
I would like to finish by thanking all of our dedicated sponsors, supporters, virtual supporters, The Crosender Way, Marine In The Community staff and volunteers, MFC volunteers including stewards, pitch staff, and media team, our bar & kitchen staff, and all management teams across our teams who are all working hard and pulling together to take Marine Football Club forward.
James Leary